The Elemental Warriors: Chapter 10
Chapter 10- Coral The day after the whole Warriors-meet-Guardians thing, the Sky Siblings had a surprise for us. Mind you, it wasn’t a very fun surprise, but still pretty cool. At practice that night, Sola announced, “Today two of you are going to be going on your first quest. Quests are missions to defeat monsters. Some are easy and some are harder, but they always have rewards. “The first two quests you do, you will be granted permission to shapeshift into an animal, but not of your choice. Elemental Warriors, it will be somewhat based on your element. Natural Guardians, your two animals will be somewhat related to your powers. “The third quest you complete, you can choose any animal you like to also be able to shapeshift into. After that quest, no more species will be added on. “So when you complete three quests, all of you can shapeshift into different animals. Two are not your choice, but one is.” Luna coughed. Sola said, “Yes, enough about the rewards. Usually a month or so after you would become Warriors and Guardians, you would endure your first quest, but you are progressing quickly. The partnership that will defeat the monster that is on the loose right now is…” I could feel the tension in the air. I was almost sure the partnership would be Sage and Paul. They had impressed Sola with whatever the heck they had done last night. “…Coral and Ethan!” Sola announced. Wait, what? We had done nothing last night. Ethan looked shell-shocked too. Luna smiled. “This should not be too shocking to you. We are unable to determine the special ability-or perhaps abilities-of the monster, only that he is causing havoc around… oh, what do you humans call it?” “Power & Light,” Intu volunteered. “Ah, yes, that,” Luna continued. “Your versatility in your partnership makes you the most likely to defeat the monster in the Kansas City Power and Light district.” I frowned. I wasn’t a huge fan of the city, and the bright neon lights in that part of town only made it worse. “Wait,” Ethan said. “Surely the other people will notice us fighting a monster and teleporting all over the place...?” Intu replied, “Well, haven’t you noticed that no one besides you notices all the weird things going on? Don’t you remember the first day…?” Ethan and I said at the exact same time, “The teacher thought it was a Gatorade bottle…” “I call it the Smoke,” Sky volunteered. “What does that mean?” Jake asked. Sky answered, “It’s like the Mist from Percy Jackson, but cooler.” She and Ember high-fived. Intu smiled. “Yes, exactly. Now, Ethan, I want you to teleport to somewhere around that Price Chopper in the Power and Light District. You will find the monster in that Price Chopper, probably in aisle nine.” Ethan nodded, grabbed my hand, and the world faded into the city. ---- We appeared on a sidewalk, facing a brightly lit sign reading COSENTINO’S PRICE CHOPPER. I was breathless. “So this is what teleporting is like,” I said in awe. I sucked in a breath, and we walked straight towards the automatic sliding doors… And straight into them. They must have been locked. Ethan rubbed his forehead. A goose egg was appearing out of nowhere. “Okay, that definitely did not work,” he grumbled. “We can just teleport through them,” I suggested. “I dunno…” Ethan mumbled. “I need to save my energy…” His eyes widened. Something was behind me. I turned around, and a man was sneering down at us. “Frick. He’s a teleporter,” Ethan whispered. “Great,” I whispered back. “Yes, I am,” the man said, hearing our quiet conversation. “And I am going to take you far from home,” he promised. Our eyes widened. He grabbed us, and the world flashed before our eyes. We were in Paris. London. Somewhere really cold. And the monster finally let go of us on some paved trail. A giant deep blue lake was right next to us. It was pretty cold, even though it was only early fall. This made no sense until I realized where we were. “Crater Lake,” I said. Ethan was confused. “What?” he asked, a quizzical look on his face. “We’re right next to Crater Lake. That’s what that is.” I pointed to the blue water next to us. That’s when I noticed the monster, running towards us as fast as possible, maybe a hundred yards away. “I have a plan,” I whispered to Ethan. I didn’t tell him what it was, because my ‘plan’ was more like a stupid motion. All I told him was, “Don’t follow me. Teleport back without me.” He nodded and shimmered away, hopefully going back to the forest. I eyed the man running towards me. “You wanna get me?” I yelled. “Come and get me!” Then I jumped into the lake. ---- Yeah, this is why I called it a stupid motion. I thought I was going to drown. Instead, I noticed that there was some sort of air bubble around me, but I could still swim. I swam down further, and saw the monster dive in after me in an explosion of bubbles. He was obviously having a hard time swimming down to catch me. He looked like he was running out of air quickly. I looked away before the depressing stuff happened, and kept swimming to the bottom. Coral, you may be thinking, why would you do something stupid like that?'' Well, I'' can sense stuff in water, and I sensed something that was pretty powerful. There was no other explanation. Sure enough, when I got to the bottom (it took a long time-don’t ask), there was a set of elevator doors. There was a pair of up-down buttons floating next to it. Weird, I thought. Not knowing what else to do, I pressed the down button. Waited. Waited some more. Finally, the doors opened, and I walked into the (dry!) elevator. After a lot of testing which button went where, I finally decided to press button 4. I felt the (unfortunately familiar) sensation of being squished as I went up. I arrived a few steps away from the clearing. After I recounted my experience, Luna said, “Well done, Coral. While you were talking, I granted you your first shapeshifting animal. Just think about it and you will shapeshift into it.” At first I was confused. Then I just squeezed my eyes shut and thought to myself, Okay, just shapeshift into… whatever you can shapeshift into now. '' I opened them and looked down.'' Flip. Category:Chapters 10-19